Church Dedication




What a memorable day this last Sunday was as good friends, family, and surrounding pastors and their families joined our church body to dedicate the new church building to the Lord. The following is a letter from that morning's bulletin:


Meetings.

 Nearly endless meetings have led up to this day.

 Building meetings, that is. I can recall them going back some 20 years.

 We discussed staying in the Bruns Construction building on Kiwanis. We debated and moved to Marion Road. We voted to lease an events hall in the country southwest of town.

 We have investigated old buildings to renovate and/or move. The first: the pink tattoo parlor on Cliff Avenue. Others: the converted farm house on 33rd and Marion Road; an old country church with graveyard northwest of town; an abandoned church in Rowena; the starter building on North Minnesota Avenue; a privately owned structure in southeast Minnesota; an occupied southeast Sioux Falls building needing to be cleared out; a metal building east of Tea...

 We toured other building projects in and around Sioux Falls, Tea, Worthing, Parker, Mitchell, Elkton, Brookings, North Dakota... 

 Then came the meetings on philosophy and design. Ever borrow money? Solicit donations? Start before fully funded? Size? Shape? Height? Basement? Frill vs. function? Steel or stick-built? Type of heat? Material and pitch of roof? Self-build or contract? Building codes, neighborhood engagement, maintenance of standards, degree of completion before occupying, prioritizing remaining projects... ?

 Truly this has been a journey of many, many meetings leading up to this day.

 It is a great time to pause and consider how far and well God has guided us. It is God who has made this project succeed. God has been there in those meetings. This His work. This is His house.
- Pastor Schuurmans 










































Though we have moved in, there is still work to be done for the completion of the building project, such as carpeting in this fellowship area.













But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth?  




Behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built! 


Have respect therefore to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God, to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee:


That thine eyes may be open up this house day and night, upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there; to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.
II Chronicles 6:18-20













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